Stand by your gal
by seriousish
Summary: Lincoln Lee thinks men shouldn't be held responsible for things they say during hostage situations. Or kidnappings. Or pregnancies. LincolnXOlivia
1. Chapter 1

Lincoln doesn't like paperwork. It's one of the sucky aspects of being the boss, because when he was a field agent he could just bring donuts and Olivia and Charlie would do that crap for him, but as the boss, he's kinda obligated to put in his two cents on what was _up_ with that evil seal thing. Like, seal as in a gate, that would be understandable, but seal as in balances a ball on its nose? That's just freaky.

But tonight he's loving the paperwork. He's powering through it. He was blowing through paperwork like the Titanic through icebergs. And then he's done and there's no paperwork and he's double-checking that they have enough toilet paper rolls on queue when he realizes why he and paperwork are eloping—it's because he dropped in on Olivia four hours ago, with Charlie, pulled the old "boss stuff to do" two minutes in, and has been here ever since. Same principle as when his dad got sick in high school and he started picking up extra credit assignments. He's avoiding the soap opera stuff.

Lincoln's not going to let this be a thing. He's not going to let Charlie get wind of it and have a _convo_ about it and have things be awkward with Liv and have everything end up in a group hug. He's going to man up and go visit Olivia in the hospital. Just as soon as he's done requisitioning some more toilet paper. 

* * *

><p>"Hey, it's Uncle Lincoln. Hi, Uncle Linc." Olivia waves the baby's hand at him, then sinks it back down into her lap again and does this little horse whisperer thing with her hand and its head to put it to sleep. And although Lincoln respects women and especially respects Olivia in the 'she could drop something heavy on me, like an anvil' way… damn, those maternity boobs are working for her.<p>

"I'm his uncle now?"

"You don't get a say in it," Olivia tells him. "You wanna hold him? It's pretty cool."

"Yeah, sure."

Lincoln takes a seat by her bed—should've straddled it, been really macho—and accepts the baby from her. It—he—barely weights anything. It's about the weight of a baby-sized Marshmallow Peeps.

"Wow. Miracle of life," Lincoln says instead of sharing that thought. "So, have you named him yet?"

"Nah. For now I'm just calling him Mr. President. Hoping to get on the ground floor with this stuff, ya know."

"Aw. Cool." Man up. Be the hero of your own story. You handled the giant seal, you can handle this. "So, about earlier…"

"When earlier? Evil twin, undercover assignment, Secretary of Defense's grandson, kidnapping…?"

"Remember the time you gave birth in a Chinese restaurant?"

"I am officially leaving that out of my son's childhood. As far as he's concerned, he hitched a ride with the stork."

"Duly noted." Lincoln bounces the President on his knee. Olivia looks charmed. Was it possible to pick up chicks with their own baby? He stops. "So, we're cool?"

"Why wouldn't we be cool?"

"I'm taking that as a yes." He passes her the baby. "So, enjoy your maternity leave, and the miracle of life and whatnot."

"Oh, is this about you being in love with me?"

He'd stood, he'd walked, and he was so close to the door he could taste it. "I meant that platonically, in a surrogate family, workplace-appropriate, Batman/Robin sort of way… I'm an enlightened male, I wear nice clothes, I go to spas, I can be emotionally open."

"You think I'm gorgeous, you want to kiss me…" Olivia says, sing-song.

He orbits back toward her. "Don't make this gay."

"You want to huuuug me... You want to loooove me..." Now she's bopping the baby in time to the… flirting? The baby doesn't look thrilled about it. "You want to smoooooch me..."

"I'm the boss, you're the employee, how is it possible for you to sexually harass me?"

The baby settles back into Olivia's arms. "Relax. I'm not going to hold your _amour_ for me against you. Really, why wouldn't you fall in love with me?"

"There are rumors that you can be a little smug."

Olivia's grin didn't disappear. "Those bitches don't know what they're talking about. Anyway, you should get some worms, like Charlie. Apparently, they're a chick magnet."

"I know, that is freaky, right?" Lincoln says in a rush, sitting back down. "He found the one girl who thinks having crabs is a turn-on _and_ she's a redhead."

Olivia's eyes flutter upward to her own bangs, then drop back down to him. "Jealous?"

"You know what, I bet it's the scar. Scars are so low-maintenance. Artful stubble, much harder. Do you know the odd hours I shave to get this quarter-beard? Five o'clock stubble is a sick joke of a phrase."

She laughs and for a moment, he's gone.

"Alright, gossip later," Olivia says. "My mom-sense is telling me he needs to breastfeed, and I'm having a hard enough time knowing my breasts can do that. I don't want to put you through that."

He stands and doesn't want to go. He's also surprised at how emo his inner monologue got all of a sudden. "You're so sensitive. Must be those maternal instincts kicking in."

"Shut up or I'll sit on you with my child-bearing hips."

The door beckons. He's chalking this whole evening up to the euphoria of getting his paperwork backlog done when she calls after him...

"I just got out of one and a half long-term relationships. But you can totally be my rebound."

At least he's finally figured out _why_ he told her he loved her. Both because it's… accurate… and because childbirth's the one time she wouldn't have a quip ready.

Although he does like the quips, so…

Maybe he should triple-check the toilet paper allotment.


	2. Sex Is Getting In The Way Of Our 'Ship

There were two likely outcomes to Olivia figuring out that he was in love with her, Lincoln had always thought. One was the always-popular "oh, really, but _I've_ been in love with _you_! We've wasted so much time! _Sex_ time!" The other, and more likely, outcome was that she would turn it into a running joke. Charlie had worms, Lincoln was in love with her, and Astrid was addicted to tumblr.

Trust Olivia Dunham to take a third option. She didn't joke. She didn't start eyesexing him, more than she did everyone else at least. But when he was working late, trying to find storage space for a bunch of toilet paper they wouldn't work through until 2015 (possible solution: Taco Night every Tuesday at the cafeteria), she came into his office. Wearing a pencil skirt, a blouse, and high heels. He didn't know she owned high heels that weren't attached to motorcycle boots or something.

"Hey, boss," she said to him, staring over the frames of the slender glasses she wore. She held a stack of papers in her hand, and as she walked toward him, she peeled one off the top. "I'm going to need your signature on this." She dropped it to the floor. "And for you to look over these." More steps, more papers tossed over her shoulder. "And I'm going to need your dick." She dropped the remaining papers in his lap and perched herself on his desk, or started posing for a pin-up. One of those two. "For sex."

"Ummm…" Lincoln's brain did a quick 180 to try to shake loose several, _several_ thoughts that had suddenly taken hold of it. "Taco night?"

"Dirty. I like it." Olivia did a little spin on her rump and planted her high heel on his chest, leaning him back on his chair. "You're still wearing pants. Could make things difficult."

Lincoln's brain spun another 180 degrees. "Olivia, what's come over you? Did one of the shapeshifters get drunk and go looking for a good time? Because while it seems harmless, it's always awkward. I'll never look at Charlie the same way again."

"I'm not a shapeshifter."

"Then is this a pregnancy… hormone… thing?"

She smirked. "Yes, because that's what my body wants—more people sucking on my boobs. Look, Lincoln, it's real simple. I like you, you're Facebook-stalking me; I need to get laid, you're a guy…" Olivia lowered her glasses to the tip of her nose. "Besides, doesn't every man dream of sticking it in the secretary?"

Lincoln thought of telling her he just dreamed of sticking it in her and possibly Jennifer Connolly if she got her curves back, but that seemed like a very unromantic thing to say.

"Plus," Olivia added, working his belt off, "I really don't wanna let my pregnancy cleavage go to waste." 

* * *

><p>So, if anyone asked, Lincoln would tell them that the office affair was all Olivia's idea. Really all her idea. She would take out those glasses in the middle of a briefing and start running the earpiece over his lips and it was all he could do to finish telling the team about the giant eggs in Phoenix, Arizona ("There are reports that they're growing in size… throbbing… pulsating…") before asking to talk to her alone in her office. Talk tended to be code for 'anything but talking.' Olivia wasn't big on pillow talk.<p>

Lincoln got that. The whole boss/secretary thing… either Olivia had read some very age-inappropriate books growing up or it was a way to distance the sex from the relationship. It made Lincoln feel a little used, to be honest. He never knew if Olivia respected him in the morning. Thinking it over, he thought of getting some Ben & Jerry's to soothe his nerves before coming to the sudden realization that Olivia wore the pants in the relationship. Under those awesome, awesome pencil skirts. 

* * *

><p>"So if this isn't hormones…" Lincoln said once, in that putting-on-clothes phase of the sordid affair where it would be awkward to talk about what had hatched from the Phoenix, Arizona eggs, so it was safe to talk about the fact that he could now count on both hands how many times he'd been inside her.<p>

"And if I'm a shapeshifter, I've been on a bender so long my liver is kaput," Olivia added.

"I'm just… wondering…" Lincoln shrugged. "Why now?"

Olivia looked at him.

"I mean, I've had a penis this whole time."

"Yeah, I noticed." Olivia pulled her stockings on. Lincoln was beginning to think she enjoyed the 1940s-ishness of it all. "Think of it this way. Somewhere out there, way out there, there's another universe. And in it, there's another Olivia Dunham. And she's kinda a goodie-two-shoes. She puts her hair in buns. She owns _pant suits._ So, therefore, I must be the naughty Olivia."

She dropped her skirt over the garters she'd done up. Lincoln was enjoying the 1940s-ishness too.

"Makes sense," Lincoln nodded. "So, what am I like over there? Do I have a goatee? Am I evil in a leather-pants kinda way?"

Olivia looked askew. "Yeah. Sure."

"Do I have a scar? Is it a cool scar?"

"Yeah. Goes right over your eye. Which is all milky."

"Awesome." 

* * *

><p>"You havin' sex with Olivia?" Charlie asked.<p>

Lincoln looked up from the map where he was trying to plot where the scorpion-man would strike next (_I should ask Charlie where his girlfriend takes him on dates_). "Huh?"

"Don't 'huh' me. Are you tapping that?"

Lincoln leaned back in his command chair (since becoming boss, every chair he sat in was mentally dubbed the command chair). "Yes. She loves to come into my office dressed as a secretary and perform sexual favors on me. She calls me boss."

"A simple 'no' would've sufficed."

"She even brings me coffee."

"You know she won an Olympic medal for marksmanship, right? So even though she isn't in the room, she can still shoot you." 

* * *

><p>Lincoln didn't get that Olivia was trying to tell him something until she strode into his office in the middle of the day, wearing the world's tightest blouse, shortest skirt, and longest pantyhose (though that last one could've just been her legs.)<p>

"Liv, it's the middle of the day. People are working. People we don't want to know about our sex lives, singular."

"My motto's always been; when it's right, it's right. Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night?" she sang as she undid her blouse.

"No means no, Dunham! Let's just say we're going to lunch, find a motel, and have sex in a bed for once. Our spines will thank us."

Olivia casually brushed his Worlds' Greatest Boss (not a typo) mug off his desk. "Oops. Let me get that, chief." She bent down and Lincoln found out the color of her panties. After that, he was only human.

Lincoln bent Olivia over his desk, for once hoping for premature ejaculation. The next thought he had (that wasn't a variation on the word 'tight') concerned Astrid watching them from the doorway. She stared at him. He stared back at her. Olivia would've stared, but as lovely as Astrid was, it really would've put Olivia off to see her just then.

"Sixty percent chance that Agent Lee will reach orgasm first," Astrid said haltingly. "Sorry to interrupt. Thirty percent chance Agent Dunham will reach orgasm first. I'll go now. Ten percent chance of simultaneous orgasm. I'm locking the door behind me."

At some point in her monologue, Lincoln had secured himself behind his desk, in his chair. It made him look as bossy as he could manage. With Astrid gone, Olivia dropped in his lap.

"Wanna be in the ninety-first percentile?"

He put her back on the desk. 

* * *

><p>The whole episode made Lincoln think he needed to come up with a solution to the problem of being Olivia's sex slave. At first he'd thought she just wanted casual sex, and statistically speaking a woman would have to suggest that <em>sometime<em>. But after that thing with Astrid, he thought either every MILF porn in the world was true, or Olivia wanted something from him. Maybe cunnilingus, maybe not.

Lincoln needed to get Olivia's number, and he happened to know someone who was great with numbers. 

* * *

><p>"Agent Farnsworth, report to my office please." A moment later, she did. "Astrid, I'd like to talk to you about the other day."<p>

"Do we have to? I have a hard enough time forgetting things with a photographic memory. I still remember every M. Night Shyamalan movie I've ever seen."

Lincoln winced back, surprised. Maybe he'd seen Wild Things too many times, but he'd always assumed a woman's first response to walking in on a love scene was sexual arousal and bicuriosity. "Why would you want to forget that? Sex is a beautiful thing, especially when I do it… is it because we're white?"

"No, sir." Astrid shuffled her shoes. "I have sexphobia."

"What's that?"

"Fear of sex."

"That's what it sounded like, I just wanted to be sure. Assumptions, you know… bad. Oh, God, sexphobia, is that because you were…"

"No, nothing like that, I just saw Showgirls at an early age."

"Cool. So, for the past week or so, Olivia has been pretending to be my private sexretary. It's like something out of Mad Men! Or maybe not, I don't watch Mad Men."

"You really should."

"I'm catching up on Lost first. I hear the ending really makes sense and ties the story together, so I'm looking forward to that."

" I was worried they were making it up as they went along, but they really weren't."

"Speaking of weird, inexplicable events, Olivia having sex with me."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, sir. You have abs. Ab."

"There's gotta be more to it. What're the odds that she spends months in a parallel universe, breaks up with her boyfriend, has a baby, then looks at her day planner and goes 'Oh, casual sex with Lincoln, penciled that in back in March, better get on that.'"

Astrid made a look of furious concentration.

"Don't calculate that, it was rhetorical. But you're Olivia's friend, you're a woman, and you're so smart you can actually use Frequent Flier miles. I need you to explain to me what this means in Olivese."

"I've only had sex four times, sir, and one was with an Asian man, I'm not sure it counts."

"Whoa!" Lincoln said, holding up his hands as if he could physically push back racism.

"I am a proud black woman, I will make as many race jokes as I want… honky."

"Fine, be Carlos Mencia, just give me the 511 on Olivia. She called the other her 'proof that blondes don't have more fun,' maybe she's trying to set herself apart from O-Lame-ia."

"Maybe she got pregnant in the other universe and she's in love with O-Lame-ia's boyfriend."

"If you're not going to take this seriously…"

"So she misses that boyfriendliness and she wants it from you."

"Then why doesn't she ask? I'd cuddle with her. I'm more cuddly than a Snuggly."

"She also just got burned on her boyfriend. And she appreciates your friendship. And she wants to have sex with you."

Lincoln shrugged bashfully.

"So, plausible deniability. She's putting herself out there and waiting for you to make the next move. If you don't, you're friend with benefits. If you do, you're something more."

"Oh my God, that's brilliant. Every woman should do that!"

"I'll put a suggestion in the next newsletter."

Lincoln sprang up and kissed Astrid on the cheek. "You should have a talk show! I owe you one!"

"Well… you could Vagoogle Brandon for me."

"Walter's Brandon? I'm pretty sure he's evil. Like, ninety percent sure."

"So I have a thing for bad boys. You're dating a redhead. You don't have room to talk." 

* * *

><p>So after changing Taco Night from hard tacos to soft tacos and back a half-dozen times, Lincoln went to Olivia's place. She answered the door nursing her baby. For Lincoln's part, he had a bouquet in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other, and a Blu-Ray clenched in his teeth. "Mm mmpf mmp!"<p>

Olivia took the Blu-Ray out of his mouth. "Wanna try that again?"

"Mmm… err… uh…"

"Don't make me give you the burnt baby treatment. I'm good at it."

"Sorry, it's just… there's a little person sucking out your bodily fluids. I don't know why I thought I wouldn't be freaked out by that. But I'm over it now!" he added hastily.

"What are you doing here, Lincoln? All day long, all I've done is put stuff in and take it out."

"I was just thinking about what you said, how every guy has a fantasy about his secretary. And, well… maybe every girl has a fantasy of a guy showing up at her doorstep with flowers and bubbly to watch a romance."

Olivia's eyes brightened, but her eyebrows were still piqued with suspicion. "If this is you angling for a threesome, it's not going to happen unless you're really good friends with Elizabeth Mitchell."

"This isn't about sex. It's about us. I want you… not a secretary."

Olivia looked at the Blu-Ray. "The Princess Bride."

"Yeah, I hear Jeff Bridges is really good in it."

Olivia stepped out of the way. "Load it into the TV. I'll put the baby down."

"Can I?" Lincoln fixed Henry with a stare. "You're a horrible orator, you have no fashion sense, and you're bald." 

* * *

><p>With the baby tucked in, Olivia joined Lincoln on the couch. After the opening credits, she put her hand on his knee. During the second act, her head wandered to his shoulder. By the end of the movie, her legs were curled beside her and she was resting her head on his lap.<p>

"This mean we're going steady?" she asked, voice a little teasing and a lot serious.

"I don't know. What did the secretary bit mean?"

"That I was horny and thought it would be fun to wear a skirt?" She paused, then snuggled deeper into his leg, one hand under his thigh. "I'm in a weird place right now."

"You have a right to be."

"I'd kinda like it if we could just stay like this for a while."

"This, with the romantic gestures and office sex, or this with you being cuddly?"

"Both."

"Okay." Lincoln reached down and rubbed the back of her neck. "You wanna watch the Tonight Show?"

"No, I can't stand Letterman. Just put on something that won't make me shoot myself and keep doing that thing with your hand."


End file.
